Barack Obama's second term has been an "extraordinary disappointment"
so far, according to Mitt Romney, the defeated Republican presidential
candidate.

Citing his own hopes for what he could have achieved for America's hard-pressed middle classes had he won last year's general election, Mr Romney said Mr Obama's failure to set the agenda far outweighed the trio of Washington scandals that have buffeted the administration.

"Even more disappointing than the controversies has been the lack of any clear agenda in the first 100 days," Mr Romney said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The former private equity boss with Bain Capital – who has remained largely silent following his heavy defeat in November that painted him as an out-of-touch elitist – said that Mr Obama still appears to be campaigning instead of governing.

"We were thinking, gosh, we have 100 days to really get the ball rolling. So I presumed the president would have the same kind of effort under way. And yet the only thing that has come forward has been immigration reform, which is very important, and that has been done entirely by the Senate.

"We are now over 100 days, and we have yet to see any particular agenda. That is my view, that the extraordinary disappointment of the president's second term is where the opportunity was greatest, he has proposed the least. He continues to campaign as if there is another election, and there isn't."

The former governor of Massachusetts has signalled a return to the public sphere by hosting a $5,000-a-week (£3,300) retreat for Republican thinkers in Utah next week, and will help campaign for in the 2014 election, although he promised that he was not "going to be bothering the airwaves with a constant series of speeches."

The Republican Party is continuing to digest the implications of its heavy defeat in 2012 at the hands of Mr Obama's hi-tech election machine that enabled Democrats to turn out their coalition of minorities, young women and the less well-off.

As the party debates immigration reforms Mr Romney said he ranked the failure to reach out better to minorities, particularly Hispanics, as one of the chief regrets of his campaign.

"I wish we had done a lot more advertising on Hispanic media and combated the ads the Obama folks were running there. We just didn't devote the appropriate level of resources to that."